So, wait, let’s revise that. Everything has been said about anti-Semites at Occupy Wall Street. The ratio of outraged published reports or commentaries about anti-Semites at OWS to actual anti-Semites at OWS is probably about ten to one. This video by the Republican group “Emergency Committee for Israel” tries to portray the movement as anti-Semitic by bringing a video camera to the rally and filming four people holding up anti-Semitic signs or saying something anti-Semitic. One of them is featuredtwice:

Rubin calls the ad “eye-popping.” We have found the conservative pundit equivalent of PeterTravers.

My eyeballs remain firmly in their sockets. Anti-Semites are, fortunately, excluded from most respectable channels of public discourse. They tend to lean heavily on the hand-lettered-sign mode of communication. You can find anti-Semites descending on almost any public gathering of disgruntled people, including tea party rallies. (I suppose the exception would be explicitly Jewish or pro-Israel rallies.) It doesn’t really tell you much about the relationship of anti-Semitism to the core principles of a protest movement. To the extent that the movement has produced any coherent statements of principle, even the craziest ones contain no traces ofanti-Semitism.

Michelle Goldberg has some smart thoughts on the persistence of small numbers of anti-Semites at these rallies and why the movement can’t seem to stopthem.